room to live - outside - after

The window is jammed so we can't turn off the city. It's a freezing cold hour, somewhere around 1:30 in the morning. We warm our hollowed bodies from the inside out. It doesn't matter - we're young and value our memories more than our health. And our mobile screens more than our bank statements.

I breathe in and try to exhale my curiosity. But my body already knows the habit. Empty wine bottles become vertical ashtrays. Our faces become maps. I can see my direction clearly in her temples.

"No. I have never thought about other girls. No. I haven't broken any bones. Yes. I worry about diseases too. Yes. Twice... but neither time in this city. No. I have never been stoned. Yes, you can have another glass." She misses the chair by an inch. "No. I don't know how I got here. I was made up of several other people, I think."

The bulb in our lounge blows. You can't see any stars even in darkness because the city is so bright. I don't really care where the light is coming from - only that it's there. I wonder how many lights have bodies beneath them. At a guess I think it must take about four bodies to feed a light.

"Actually, I was 75% my mother and 25% my father first. And then after I was born all these other people picked me up and held me. They left their fingerprints everywhere. So now I'm mostly made up of other people. See?"

Yes. I heard.

Me, screwing the lid onto the quarter-empty bottle and balancing it on its neck.

"What? Yes, I said you can have the last cigarette."

The body in front of me stands suddenly. Knocks the bottle over. I have never broken any bones but she has broken a bottle. Dancing in the sugar puddle.

"I was saving that."

Me, irritated. Not dancing.

She picks up the chair and swivels it around. (Dancing.)

"Sorry. I just wanted the last cigarette." She sits back down. Lights the last cigarette. Puts it out. Picks it up again. Looks at the filter end, very closely. Looks at the label on a broken piece of the bottle. Turns the chair the right way around. Sits on it. Stands back up. Goes to find a mop.

I can't stand the smell of this.

"Shut the door please." Nervously.

We wait for the mop for a very long time. It never arrives.

We find her in the kitchen making pasta.

"I'm sorry," she says. Me too.

"Are you sober?" she asks us.

"No."

"No."

"No."

"A little."

"Yes," I say. "Yes I am."

I am.

I help her light the stove. We have to use a match because it's gas. I enjoy this but so often I've burned my fingers. It leaves a little black oval around my thumb. Once I was thinking about other things and sucked the blister. It tasted a lot like I imagine those cigarettes would without the filter.

"Tell me about it," she says sternly. "I know you were lying."

I wasn't lying. Kissing is not wanting. And also...

"Um. We were sitting on the edge of our friend's brother's bath tub. And. It was something we'd talked about for a few weeks actually."

"So you knew it was going to happen?"

"Not then, no. I was never sure if she was serious. But I thought it would probably happen. It was strange but so was everything we did in that house. Nothing had consequences because we had this kind of silent truce where nothing was real. Nothing I do at night time ever feels real." Or else it feels too real. "I have difficulty differentiating between what I dream and what actually happens. Sometimes I wake up laughing or crying and I don't realise that I was ever asleep.

"We digress."

"Sorry. Um... One of the boys walked in on us. To go for a piss. He was part way through undoing his jeans. Did his fly up when he saw us - I always thought that was odd. If it was any of the others they'd have brought the party into the bathroom. But I think he got it. That that place wasn't real, at night. Or maybe he was just embarrassed. Or high. I don't know. But I feel like he was in a similar state to us.

"Why were you in the bathroom in the first place? Rub a dub dub, two girls in a tub. On a tub, sorry. On the edge. Want some pasta?"

"No thank you. Do you know I didn't feel alone that entire night. Mostly because of my friend and the boy who walked into the bathroom."

"Mmm." A thoughtful mmm.

"Shit, MTV told us to. That's all it was."

"So you did it because it was cool?"

"We didn't do it because it was cool. It was necessary."

"Isn't that off a movie?"

"Yeah it is actually. We watched that one a lot, me and her."

Another dance in the sugar puddle. Accidentally, this time.

"Did you want to watch it now?"

We drag the mattress into the lounge. All five of us are wearing different versions of my pajamas. I am stretched between five bodies.

"It's been a good night," I say. Yes. It has.

"I'm sorry about the wine."

Me too.

I'm watching the screen but all I can see is myself. Flickering in and out of reality. At 5am I get a text message from another fictional place - my past - my future, probably - about conscious dreams to travel away from here.

When I hear that we are all sleeping I turn off the television.

At 8am I learn she is honest. She is a blanket hog. But I wasn't sober.